In the black light of uncertainty they slept side by side, stilled into oblivion only by the fact that their bodies desired it, and also because they were aware that there was nothing further they could do.

Virginia had taken the sheets and blankets from the two other neatly made beds and had built herself a snug little sleeping place, something that would keep her warm. She had set it up on the floor beside Jet's bed, moving the stool out of the way. In all honesty she had wanted to sleep in the bed with him, but Jet had been oddly adverse to the idea, reasoning that although he wanted it that way as well, it just was not right. Perhaps he feared that he would curse her somehow, if she slept with a dying man.

The night seemed watchful, holding its breath. Each light in Baskar winked out, one by one, as the darkness claimed its dues. Dreams fogged in and out like visible breath, a dark mist rising upon the loch of consciousness.

Will you walk…a little faster…

They are waiting… on the shingle…

Let me come and join the dance…?

It was past midnight when Jet came to again. The state he had rested in had not been like sleep at all, but more like a deep fleeting unconsciousness, his body shutting down and then starting up again uncertainly, Jet finding himself slightly trembling all over. That deep sleep had felt like a temporary death for him, long and quiet with murmurings of dreams, but Jet knew that the long and permanent sleep was not too far off from him now. He could sense it. His eyes fluttered open and he saw that the room was bathed in pale shadows, the night light enough by the grace of the moon through the Baskarian atrium ceiling, the moonlight streaming in like water.

Jet blinked tiredly as he sat up, desiring to lie back down and go to sleep. But he was also afraid that if he entertained that notion and gave into the urge, he would never wake up again. Jet knew it was now inevitable, but still, he didn't want to try. Raising a hand that was shaking a little, he pressed it against his face and let out a deep breath, and then he swallowed hard. He had wasted most of his life just wandering aimlessly, like a drifter was supposed to do, but now, after he had finally managed to put some meaning into his life, some purpose, it was now time for it to end? It was so terribly unfair.

I feel sort of numb, my stomach kind of hurts, and my heart feels funny…

Lack of proper circulation, failing liver, kidneys and an erratic heartbeat, Clive would have said in his scholarly way. Jet could picture what his body was doing inside of him, then resigned himself to the thought that it was probably better for him to ignore. Jet's shaking hand slowly dragged down to the left side of his chest where it was able to count his heartbeats without the aid of a stethoscope, loud and thudding and false. He removed his hand after a time and it flopped to his side, upon the blankets pooled all around him.

Virginia was asleep beside the bed. She was on her knees and leaning against the wooden framework and woven mattress, slumped upon it, her hands laced together in a relaxed image of prayer. She had been praying for him. His heart tugged painfully for her, for her innocent actions that he could only appreciate out loud when nobody else was there. He did not deserve prayer, not a bastard outlaw like himself.

He moaned softly, folding his arms around his stomach. His body was empty, drained of the drugs that the doctors had used to stave the pain away. It made him want to shake and cry out like a helpless kitten until somebody came and brought the numbness back to his body, a numbness that had claimed any use of his lower limbs. Below his waist the nerves in his legs arched and twanged like cords of live wire, sending sparks of pain into his head. There was feeling now, but dear God, it hurt.

Gotta… take advantage of this while I can. Maybe… maybe I can stand. Where the hell did she put that goddamned stick…?

It was leaning against the wall, a dark shadow in a forest of dark shadows, just beyond the reach of Jet's outstretched hands. She had put it there on purpose, to make sure that he couldn't get away. He felt like a prisoner and knew that any strenuous movements might jolt him into unconscious once more, a faint that would end up terminal. Lifting himself up onto his knees, hastily ripping the blankets away, Jet pressed one hand to the wall against the head of his bed and used it for support, leaning over and reaching out with his right hand as far as his fingers could reach.

The very tips of his fingers nudged anxiously at the wooden length of the walking stave. Gritting his teeth for more reasons than just frustration, Jet tried to tuck them around the other side of the stick, nearly falling off the bed. He prodded experimentally, watching the long thin shadow slide slowly towards him. It went slowly at first, then lost its balance on the ground and just fell towards him, in a way that would easily bonk him on the head if he didn't move away in time. Cursing softly, both Jet's hands came up to grab at it and he lost all support as well, clutching at the stick like it was his one last lifeline in the world.

It held there as Jet pressed his body weight upon it, forcing it against the ground. Neither of them would fall. The dying boy exhaled loudly, releasing all his tension with the breath. An unfocused, half-baked idea had snuck into his mind. He wanted to go outside again. Gallows had taken him outside before, something which felt like too long ago, but that had been in the daytime. Jet wanted to see the moon. He wanted to see the stars as well. He didn't have any aid other that the aid he was prepared to give himself, but all gods and Guardians be damned, he was going to do this.

I gotta do this. It's my last chance…

Jet slid out of bed and tried to stand. He felt a rush of vertigo and dizziness and his legs nearly buckled beneath him, but he clenched his hands into the wooden tool and forced himself upright, breathing hard. It hurt like a bitch, but he could feel a faint outline around both of his legs and feet, a gentle sensation of almost-thereness, probably premature phantom pains. His arms were already beginning to strain and ache from bearing nearly all his weight. There was no time to be hesitant. He had to step forwards now.

He slumped to the left, banging his shoulder hard on the side of the wall. He nearly slid downward reflexively, but willed himself forwards instead. Jet leant over until it looked like he was about to double over in pain, bravely slid the walking stave out to an angle that would catch him as he half fell, then shuffled his greatly-dead legs behind him, ending up in the same position he had started with, but finding himself a foot or so further away. He had taken one step.

This was quite possibly the hardest thing he had ever done before. Everything in his life, from his artificial birth to the final drifting journey he had undertaken had seemed like a cakewalk compared to this, the monsters of the past mere dust bunnies and dreams that had never been. All that existed now was the night, the floor and Jet, separated by one thin, ridiculously insignificant walking stick. How laughable. How stupid. How exhausting.

He was near tears when he came to the door and wedged it open with his body, giving up at this point and sliding down the length of the stave with a sigh, sitting within the frame of the door. A thought came unbidden to him as he pressed his face against the wooden pole between his legs and arms, that he probably looked like some kind of ludicrous and exhausted pole dancer. He could see outside from this vantage point, while still remaining technically inside. Jet wiped faint traces of sweat away from his brow, glad that that part was now over. He smiled.

The moon was a large, round, bone-white orb in the sky, bruised with traces of craters and shadows. It was a gem that nobody could attain, something that would remain unchanged until all life was taken from the land. If people feared time, as Jet did, then time would fear only the moon. The eternal moon.

Around it the stars sparkled like droplets of reflecting water, a sea of crushed, littler gems to complement the larger one that took up most of the sky. Jet leaned his head back against the doorframe and tried to breathe in the night, savoring it and the newest memory that he saw. Wisps of night fog were clinging to the grass like a creeping, animate burial shroud. Jet hoped that it wasn't seeking him out.

"It looks like a sea…" He whispered quietly to himself, hearing his voice emerge in a croak, sounding almost like the voice of a chronic chain smoker. A regretful expression crossed his face. It was a sea all right, one where the souls of all humans flowed with each other across the waves, each little droplet, like a star in the sky, creating a multitude that became a raging torrent of life.

'What matters it how far we go?' his scaly friend replied…

'There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.'…

There were other seas than this. Jet knew it. The youth turned away from the outside, picking up the walking stave with one hand and then hurling it out the door, way too far away for him to reach again. To Hell with it! He would not be able to stand again. Crossing that seemingly endless desert back to his bed was too impossible. He didn't want to do it again.

Jet pushed the door shut with a small grunt and ran his hand down to his chest again, for an amazingly strange moment almost feeling like he could trace the outline of his thudding heart from the pale skin of his chest. It wasn't long now.

"Virginia…" He whimpered, thinking on her again.

Whatever pride he thought he had left was now gone. It was a relief, like shedding a favored coat that had gotten too dirty to wear anymore. He was by himself now, the only one to bear witness to this last disgrace. Jet crawled back to his bedside, on his hands and knees, like a child. His cheeks were heated with pain and frustration and shame. He sat down beside Virginia, catching his breath. She looked like an immaculate maiden, immersed in blissful prayer. Prayer for his soul? He did not deserve such ministrations.

The last thing he wanted to do was wake her. Crying was becoming easier for him now that he was doing it more often, the last few bricks of his mental defenses coming down and being spirited away. He started to cry silently, knowing that he deserved to have died of bullet wounds years ago, a corpse that would have been buried away by a sandstorm, or become bleached bones by the sun. Instead, his death was affecting the ones he loved most of all. Yes, loved. Why couldn't he have said it earlier, when they were there around him and able to understand?

He was a fool. A goddamned fool.

Jet embraced her gently, attempting not to force her awake. He was trembling, shaking like a leaf against her warm, soft body, but he knew very well that Virginia slept like a rock most of the time, so everything would be okay. He started to sob into her shoulder. Words that had stuck in his throat from earlier slipped free like oil and quavering along with Jet's weak, frail body.

"I'm…It's time for me to go now, Virginia. I can tell. It's like an alarm is going off and there's nothing more I can do about it. But I'm such a stupid, fucking moron! I wanted to say everything to you, everything that I felt for you, but I couldn't. I wouldn't let me!" He tightened his hold on her, slightly. "I love you, Ginny. I love you." He kissed her cheek. "I love you." Her neck. "I love you." The line of her jaw. "I wish I could've said it earlier. An' not just you too, everybody else. Gallows and Clive and all the others. Everyone. I love… everyone…"

His hands moved up, following along hers to grip lightly in a small mimicry of her own, folded praying hands. From where he was, his arms weren't long enough for his fingers to meet together properly, but this was good enough. Jet's tears were making a small, translucent mark upon the white blouse Virginia had worn to bed, practically the only article of clothing she had on. "I can't pray." He admitted shyly. "I have nobody to pray to, other than God. And God won't answer me. But I can pray that you'll know that I love you, an' that everyone else will know as well. I know I've been a bastard for a really long time, but I hope you'll know that if things were different, I would've stayed with you forever."

He unlaced Virginia's hands and kept a gentle hold on her right hand. As carefully as he could, he wrapped an arm about her shoulder and guided her softly to the blankets and sheets beneath her. The floor was uncomfortable to him and he was getting unbearably tired. The pain was rooting deeply into him as well, gnawing at his insides. He placed the hand that was holding Virginia's onto the floor. Jet kept a lax hold on her fingers and pressed all his body weight onto the very base of his palm and wrist, putting his other arm on the bed and swinging a leg up with whatever last dwindling sense of feeling and control that he had. He fought his way back onto the bed then drooped, landing harshly on his stomach.

Jet's faded lavender eyes could no longer see Virginia from where he was, but he knew she was still there. He was still holding onto her hand. The hand that had grasped at everything and had rightfully made her his leader. The hand he would have put a ring on someday, someday in the world of never-land.

The burning, erratic heartbeat in his chest had dwindled to a fluttering, half-hearted tremble.

This is it. This is what it feels like to be dying.

It really wasn't as bad as he had thought. Numbness, something that had come without the aid of drugs spread from within him, touching his limbs in a series of pleasant waves. His eyes became distant, far away. He could see lights dancing behind them, flickering on a horizon of black sand and twilight.

"Ginny…" He uttered quietly, in a soft mewl. "…Don't forget me, okay? …I won't forget you…" Jet sighed, closing his eyes. "…love you…"

He fell into an untroubled sleep. Time passed by in the medicine house of Baskar Colony, clocked by the gentle rising and falling of Jet's breathing. Then, about twenty five minutes into his slumber, abruptly and without any commotion, his breath finally stopped. The tears were still fresh on his cheeks.

And Jet was gone.

xxx

Virginia had found him early the next morning. He had been lying on his stomach upon the bed, his head against the downy pillows. He had looked calm, unafraid. Jet had died in his sleep.

How strangely ironic it was for a youth to have lived every day of his life in the threat of constant danger, only to die in relative peace, in tranquil obscurity. Virginia hoped that there had been no pain in the end.

His body was cold, she felt it as she gradually greeted the waking world, her eyes sliding open and blurring against the pale morning light. Outside the sky was overcast, the ground dewy with water. It was the day in which the world would continue without him. They were lying parallel to one another, Jet upon the bed and Virginia upon the floor. They were joined by hand, had been joined in that manner for most of the night. He had gripped her hand in fear and prayed that he would never have to let go again. He had still been holding onto her even as the life left his body. Rebellion to the bitter end.

The fingers were stiff and clinging, as she sat up and rubbed at her eyes with her one free hand, he would not let go. Gently she cupped his hand with both of hers, as if the action would bring warmth back into his body once more. Jenny's wooden prayer bracelet rattled against his wrist. The sense that Jet only looked like he was sleeping was nearly overwhelming. He looked like a resting angel.

With one tiny, yet amazingly significant action, Virginia pulled him away from her, breaking the connection. There was no point now. "It's okay now, Jet." She said with a surprisingly calm voice, guessing that she must be entering the first stages of emotional shock. She actually felt somewhat relieved and wanted to cry for it. "I love you, and you won't have to worry about anything, not anymore."

Yes. Not anymore. He had been set free.